Sleep Scientist Says Starting Work At 10 A.M. Is What Nature Intended

A sleep scientist in England just confirmed what we already knew: getting to work before 9 a.m. is torture.

"Staff should start at 10 a.m.," Paul Kelley, an honorary clinical research fellow at Oxford University's Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute, told attendees at the British Science Festival, The Telegraph reports.

"We’ve got a sleep-deprived society. It is hugely damaging on the body’s systems because you are affecting physical emotional and performance systems in the body," he added.

Typically, when researchers talk about sleep deprivation and morning schedules, they're studying children and adolescents. And indeed, the toll sleep deprivation takes on health is particularly taxing for adolescents and young adults, whose circadian rhythms aren't aligned with a 9-to-5 schedule.

But this sleep deprivation isn't just an issues for kids and teens or regular office workers, according to Kelley. It extends to all institutions, including hospitals and prisons. “They wake up people and give people food they don’t want," he said.

These populations, Kelly said, are more "biddable" if they are suffering from sleep deprivation. "You’re totally out of it," he explained, according to The Telegraph. "Sleep deprivation is a torture."